The Uncrowned Queen (11 page)

November had arrived and with it dark winds from the far north. Louis angrily furled his robes more closely around his body and bellowed for men to fix the smoking fire. Famous for his restless year-round processionals through the kingdom of France, Louis was currently roosting in the primitive—at least by Parisian standards—castle of his provincial capital, Reyns. His bored and fractious courtiers were heartily sick of the lack of even basic comforts as winter settled over the land. They were desperate for distraction of any kind to break the endless monotony of their days.

At last it arrived. Rumor swept the drafty old castle: a messenger had just ridden in, was being ushered, exhausted, into Louis's presence. Perhaps the news he brought would be a distraction to the king, lifting his petulant gloom. His courtiers certainly hoped so. If the news was good, entertainment might be ordered and that would cheer them all. But Louis was not thinking cheerful thoughts; pessimism was his native mood and nothing had happened
to shake that so far today. He drew down his long upper lip and sniffed hard; smoke from the stubborn fire made his eyes stream tears and his vision blurred as he inspected the man before him.

“Enough!” he commanded the tribe of servants fussing with increasing panic over the fire. “I shall conduct this audience and then dine. By the time I return to this chamber, I expect the fire to be working. Properly. Now, go!”

It was miraculous, really. A certain tone in his voice and men scattered like leaves. Louis found the effect gratifying, even after a reign of nine years, but odd that his least word was taken so seriously. It would be far too easy to take it for granted, but one had only to think of the fate of others—Edward Plantagenet, for instance, or his own father—to remember that even the mighty, even a king, could fall. One must be on one's guard for treachery all the time. Tedious, but necessary.

Louis turned to the slightly higher flames in the chimney breast and rubbed his hands together in their feeble warmth. “Well, man, speak. What do you have for me?”

The glassy-eyed messenger, Riccard of Polignac, was exhausted and dazed from his long and freezing ride. Now, ushered into the king's presence, terror oozed down his back seeking his twitching sphincter, and turned his legs to boneless sacks of flesh. The sound of his heartbeat filled his ears and he yearned for the moment when he could exit the Presence and sink back into the obscurity of the guard command in Paris. That was, if he survived the news that he carried.

“Sire, the success of your campaign in Picardy and the Maconnais is glorious. Your troops mass on the borders of Burgundy itself even now and await your word to advance. But I have urgent news concerning the fate of the former king of England.”

As the man spoke, Louis breathed in too deeply, trying to mask his tension, and took a great freight of smoke into his lungs. For a moment, he could not speak but his face turned a deep brick red and sweat stood out on his forehead as he tried to catch clear air into his mouth.

Without thought, Riccard lunged forward and thumped the
king heartily on the back. That was a shock to both of them and, for a moment, each man stared at the other in terror. The messenger had laid hands on the scared person of the monarch. He could be expected to die a nasty and protracted death for such effrontery.

Understanding instantly the graveness of his offense, Riccard slumped to his knees, hands covering his head, eyes wild. “Ah sire, your pardon! I beseech your pardon!” He knocked his forehead so energetically on the flags that a bloody smear was left on the limestone.

The king regained his breath and marveled at the absurdity of it all. Of course he'd flinched when the man rushed at him—he could have been an assassin—but as the lurching thump of his heart returned to normal, he was glad of the messenger's service, for the fear had squeezed his chest, driving out the smoke.

“Get up. Get up, you fool!”

Riccard, still dazed, stumbled as he tried to stand and grasped at the edges of a tapestry on the wall for support. With a ripping groan, the rotted arras parted company with its hooks and soon the messenger was completely engulfed by
Moses Parting the Red Sea
, a heaving, twitching lump of foolishness at the feet of the king.

“What is the message?” shrieked Louis. “Tell me, or I swear you shall join your ancestors' bones in the pigsty they reside in. Speak!”

Poor Riccard. If instant death would have eased his plight he would gladly have obliged the king, but it was not to be. Closing his mouth against the dust of years trapped in the cloth, he found a way toward a little patch of light and slithered out from beneath the arras on his belly. Heaving himself free, he saw the terrible eyes of the king upon his own. For a moment he had no voice but then it came in a rush and he blurted his message as fast as hail drumming on a roof.

“The English king, sire, or the earl of March as he is now—he is in the Ridderzaal with the Lord de Gruuthuse, governor of Holland. The earl is the governor's prisoner, but does not know it.”

Louis was not without pity, though he rarely showed it. Therefore he kept his eyes trained like an arrow on the bowed head of
Riccard of Polignac, ignoring the blood dripping onto the floor at the man's feet. “And? There is more?”

The man's voice trembled. “Yes, sire. But it is contained in this cipher which will need translating. I was entrusted only with the outline of the facts.”

Riccard held up a stoppered brass tube in one shaking hand. The king leaned down and snatched it. “And I can see why,” he snorted. “A greater fool I have rarely encountered. Out of my sight! Go!”

The king's merciful release of him confused poor Riccard. He had heard that Louis was very cruel and that his favorite pastime was hanging prisoners in metal cages from the battlements of his castles. They were left there in all weathers, with no food, no water, until at last they died and their bones swung in the wind, sometimes for years and years. Riccard backed, hobbling, from the king's presence before Louis could change his mind.

The king, watching the oaf depart at speed, permitted himself to smile briefly, naughtily, as he stroked the small canister containing the promised cipher. Perhaps, at last, he was beginning to corner his dear cousin Charles, but the fate of the erstwhile English king was very much in play.
Divide and conquer, divide and conquer
, Louis thought. A sound maxim for which he thanked another monarch, though a Roman one of ages past. What he needed now was for his Doctor of Divination to cast a chart, perhaps the chart of England itself, to see what the future held. Yes, that might help him decide what to do next.

Was it possible that the Fates, those three implacable sisters, had ordained that he, Louis de Valois, would be their instrument in the ultimate downfall of Edward Plantagenet?

He very much hoped so.

Edward Plantagenet and his host, Louis de Gruuthuse, rode out in the crisp November days in search of stag. They were in a private chase, given to Louis, as governor of the Lowlands, for his entertainment and which had once been part of the giant hunting preserve of the Counts of Holland. But Edward was distracted.

“Something's not right. I know it. Why haven't we heard from Charles? It's been ten days or more. Enough time for my messages to reach him, and for us to have had a return. This freeze will have made the tracks firm.”

Edward's horse shied under him, nervous at some imagined shape in the bushes as the two men waited for the hounds to raise the quarry.

“Alas, Your Majesty, I thought I had provided you with a better mount!” Louis was annoyed, his concern genuine. The king had been given a bangtailed grey stallion with a deep chest and long delicate legs. The horse was built more for speed than weight-carrying capacity. Perhaps that had been the wrong choice.

“No, he's a fine animal. Good heart, I suspect—just a little young and flighty. He'll settle when I shake some energy out of his legs.”

Louis patted the polished neck of his own horse, a stately bay, which stood calmly waiting for the call to advance. “Perhaps I may
suggest you take my animal, Lord King, and allow me to ‘shake out his legs' for you myself. It is the least I can do.”

“No, Louis. I can manage him. And I appreciate, very much, you offering me such fine entertainment, but my men are restless and so am I. Time disappears as the weather worsens. Why has Charles not sent us word of his intentions?”

Deep in the chase the halloo began and the sieur de Gruuthuse was spared the need for replying as both horses, champing, dancing from foot to foot, took all their riders' strength to hold them.

“Come, sire, there may be news when we return to my halls. For now…” The chase was arduous and unexpectedly long, and, in the end, unsatisfying. The stag, an excellent animal with at least twelve points to its antlers, disappeared into a stream, outrunning the hounds and the court party surrounding Edward and his host. The king felt responsible for the loss, for he had led the riders and at one point his flighty mount had become distracted by the noise of the hounds and balked at the jumping of a log, causing confusion among those who followed. And in that moment the stag escaped.

It was an especially sharp blow—he'd always had success before at the chase—and Edward was privately dismayed, though he laughed it off at the feast that night.

“Ah, Louis, my cunning at the hunt must have suffered after all the alarms of the last weeks. Your red monarch lives to fight another round with your hounds—and I take that to be an excellent omen for my own case!” Louis de Gruuthuse laughed along with the rest at the high table in the Ridderzaal, but secretly he dreaded the close of the feast. He had finally received dispatches—dispatches he was yet to share with the king. Drink deep, and deeper yet, he told himself, and perhaps it would give him courage for what was to come.

Edward sauntered toward the fire in
Louis's private quarters, joining his brother, Richard of Gloucester, and William Hastings as they warmed their backs, beakers of honeyed wine in their hands. It was a cold night, with the first real snow of the season falling
silently outside the thick glass of the casements. Edward, accepting more wine from his host, kicked at the great log on the hearth. As if to answer such impertinence, a gust of wind sent sparks and smuts belching into the room from the chimney's throat. The king turned away from the fireplace, wiping soot from his eyes.

“Damn it, Louis. Does no one understand how to build a chimney in this country? Everything smokes!”

“I heartily agree with you, sire! There are never such good builders of fireplaces here as you have in your country. I brought an Englishman to Brugge to make all mine for me in my new house.”

“And may we stand before our own fire in the great hall of Westminster before Advent is done, brother!”

Edward swung to face his younger brother, smiling. “Admirable sentiment, Richard. Excellent aim! Come, Louis, let us drink to that. London and the greatest Yule log any of us has ever seen!”

“Amen, Your Majesty. Amen to that!”

A hearty swallow and robust belches from all four men, followed by laughter, made all things seem possible for the moment. Only the moment, however, for, as the laughter died, Louis strolled forward and extended a roll of vellum to the king.

“I think you should see this, my lord. It arrived earlier this evening, while we ate. I have read it.”

A pleasant smile fixed itself to Edward's face as he took the document from Louis's fingers. He turned toward the fire and bent down to milk light from the flames.

The other three were silent, apparently unconcerned, though Richard stole a glance at his brother's face. Edward's expression did not change in the few seconds it took to read what was written. Once finished, he dropped the parchment onto the fire, silently watching the skin curl up and turn black as the letters were consumed. Then he looked at his host, his eyes deep holes in his face, unfathomable. “Fair words from Charles, Louis. But nothing of substance. Would you agree?”

Louis de Gruuthuse shrugged, most uncomfortable. There were soothing things he could say, but they would not be the truth. “Your Majesty, you must give my master a little more time. As you
know, he is placed in a most difficult situation. The French king has his army knocking at the very doors of Burgundy and—”

“Time!” Now Edward allowed a little of what he was feeling to be seen on his face. “Time, dear Louis, is what I do not have. And Charles knows it! He is foolish if he thinks that the king of France will skulk away. That will happen only if I retake England. If Margaret and Warwick consolidate their power, then Burgundy is lost. Louis will pick off Charles's territory province by province, and he will not have England to take up his cause.”

Privately Louis de Gruuthuse agreed with his guest, but now was not the time to speak such truth. It was his duty to play the game the way his master, the duke of Burgundy, wished it to be played. Carefully. “Why will your master not allow me to come to him in Brugge?”